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Updates

We stopped 20 state parks from closing

After devastating budget cuts in 2011, this spring, the Legislature restored funding for state and local parks. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department had warned that 20 state parks would have to close without additional funds. But after a public outcry—including thousands of petition signatures from Environment Texas members—the Legislature boosted funding by $62 million. That's enough to keep all our state parks open, make critical repairs, replant trees destroyed by wildfire at Bastrop State Park, and to give grants to cities to build new parks, ball fields and playgrounds.

AUSTIN - As international leaders prepare for the United Nations Climate Summit next week in New York, a new study shows Texas’ coal-fired power plants dump as much carbon pollution into the atmosphere as the entire country of Egypt, a country of 86 million people. Environmental advocates pointed to the data to support proposed limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

AUSTIN – 75% of streamsacross the state could remain vulnerable to development and pollution, under a bill approved yesterday by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 262-152. The waters affected flow into important waterways including the Edwards Aquifer, the Trinity River, Caddo Lake, Galveston Bay and the Rio Grande.

Solar power is booming. Panels are popping up on homes, businesses and schools, and it’s become clearer than ever that the power of the sun is a readily available, popular option for cities and states nationwide.

Solar in the United States increased more than 120-fold in the past 10 years. In the first quarter of 2014, solar energy accounted for 74 percent of all the new electric generation capacity installed in the United States.

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Texas’ rivers, forest area, and wildlife, said the TWDB held a two-month comment period that ended with an April 29 hearing in Arlington, where there was overwhelming opposition to the project.

“There is really strong bipartisan opposition coming from Tea Party Republicans, the timber industry, local landowners, and the general public,” he said.

He estimated that “99.5 percent of the comments were opposed to the project.”

"The reason it hadn’t been largely developed before is because it’s a really special area, the gateway to the Hill Country and it overlies the Edwards aquifer, the drinking supply for over a million Central Texans," Luke Metzger with Environment Texas said. "There’s increasing development pressure over Southwest Austin and the Hill Country. That can come with significant impact to the water aquifer."

"We, of course, are in a record drought. We need to keep every drop of water we have and keep it clean, and the more that we’re developing over an important water source, that puts the water supply at risk," Metzger said.